Kate McCarthy
Posted by Amy on Wednesday September 1, 2010
Ever looked at child-inspired art that’s well, grown up?
Take a look at Kate McCarthy’s work and you’ll see what I mean. Inspired by early childhood memory of pure shape, color and intent, Kathy’s managed to dissect the colorful (and sometimes fleeting) world of play into a 2D interpretation mixed media work with a spot of humor thrown in.
I could detect a hint of innocence in her works, and also a sense of wonder as she wields her brush – I love the playfulness that shines through!
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Isol
Posted by Amy on Wednesday August 18, 2010
Isol is a children’s book illustrator based in Buenos Aires, who has illustrated for several authors such as Jorge Luján, Graciela Montes and Paul Auster.
She has quite a following, and no wonder – her deceptively simple illustrations say so much. Everything on her website is in Spanish, so if you’re not as linguistically challenged as I am, you can also peruse her blog which has a collection of posters that she illustrated. (of course, I can always count on Babelfish to help me out!)
{Thanks to Yael for the introduction into her work!}
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Martin Lacko
Posted by Amy on Tuesday August 17, 2010
Martin Lacko’s sketchbooks first caught my eye but after looking a little closer, his strange creatures and dark humor has me hooked. The Slovakian illustrator’s bold lines and unapologetic strokes bring life to his characters; while his sketchbooks are a lot more detailed – I wish there were more to see!
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Lizz Lunney
Posted by Amy on Tuesday August 10, 2010
We need more funny artists! Sure, we’ve already profiled a few – there’s Kate Beaton, Claire Murray, Mischief Champion, but here’s a new one to add to the list: Lizz Lunney, an illustrator from Birmingham who draws fun little comics about the most random things. Check out her daily drawings in a section of her website called The Daily Sushi filled with quirky characters acting out all sorts of antics — it’s a hoot!
And if you want to take them away, you can buy some of her comics over in her shop (international customers need to write to her first before purchasing for added postage!)
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Tiny Inventions
Posted by Amy on Wednesday July 28, 2010
Tiny Inventions is the Brooklyn-based directing team of Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata, and I’m in love with their latest project: a 10-minute animated dark comedy called Something Left, Something Taken about a vacationing couple’s encounter with a man they believe to be a serial killer. The film also features their own voices!
While the film is great, I really appreciated the highly detailed posts about their process. From character design (they purposely made “uglier” characters!), to how they filmed the decomposition stage (watch the whole show to find out more!), they shared their experience with fans and students generously. Max and Ru combine handcrafted art, photography, and digital techniques into their animations; and adds their own humor into the mix. The result? Beautiful, one-of-a-kind handmade films that I wouldn’t mind watching over and over again.
See more of the duo’s work over at Tiny Inventions!
{Thanks to Gina for pointing out their work!}
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Summertime Splendor
Posted by Jamie Shelman on Thursday July 22, 2010
At about this point the summertime heat has given me matted down “Jesus-hair” and my eyeballs have melted out, something like the Greek statue drawing by Norwegian artist Stine Belden (which I love!) and also kind of reminds me of ‘swimming pool George Washington hair.’.
I’ve also suffered heat induced fantasies of cheeky fruit giving me sideways glances, as captured so lovingly by Tom Edwards and bitchy topless mermaids appearing with shell purses and attitudes by Russian artist currently living in London Evgneia Barinova. Next I’ll be dreaming of riding giant fish down the Thames just to catch a breeze! Ahhhh, summertime inspiration abounds!
Ryan MacDonald
Posted by Amy on Thursday July 15, 2010
Who says there’s a dearth of things for guys to collect over at shopping sites like Etsy? Ryan MacDonald’s prints and cards all feature oddball characters and monsters — my pick would be the one where the protagonist seems to have stuck a box over his head and stormed out of an office and is off to do… odd things.
Of course there’s lots of other characters that Ryan draws — many of which would actually be great to read up in a comic. And no wonder too: he credits his inspiration source as comics, street art, and the sublime colors in nature!
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Retrowhale
Posted by Amy on Friday July 9, 2010
I’ve blogged about Kelly Puissegur’s work before, but am delighted to see the latest works available in her Retrowhale shop! She’s gotten so much bolder in expressing ideas and concepts, and I love the various media she incorporates into her work.
She professes that she likes to change up her methods and the type of media she uses — right now it’s a combination of digitally rendered and hand painted images to create simple, child-like mixed media paintings. She draws pop culture inspired pieces (check out the coaster set of the Royal Tenenbaums) and is inspired by everything, especially 70’s and 80’s design, music, rap lyrics, animals, movies, oddities, outsider art and from skate and surf culture.
Ivy Atoms
Posted by Amy on Wednesday July 7, 2010
I stumbled on Ivy’s Etsy shop a few days ago and discovered that she’s seventeen and is gearing to go to college in fall. I really like her simple watercolor drawings and of course, the humor that shines through! And if you buy her art, you’re chipping in to help her with college education fund – so how about doing a good deed today?
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juan weiss
Posted by Racheal Anilyse on Monday June 28, 2010
OMG! Summer is here! What better way to make a splash than with illustrations from Argentina based Juan Weiss. Juan used to be a senior web designer for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim Latin America. Personally, the pool art is what had me hook, line, and sinker. All right, all swimming related vocab words are over.
Why don’t you dive into Weiss’ site, Flickr, and Twitter?
Really, now I’m done.
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